About Me

A transplant to New Orleans, I had to get used to the high humidity, heat and hurricanes after living in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost a decade. I'm a food lover and enjoy sharing my finds with my friends.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

I was taking the long way home from Baton Rouge today and stopped by Middendorf's Seafood Restaurant. It was the first time I'd been back since the flooding following Hurricane Isaac.

They cleaned it up real well!

I started with something cool and refreshing on a recommendation from Chris, the bartender. It was a Southern Fly which was Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka mixed with lemonade and served in a Mason jar. Very good and quite enjoyable after an over 400 mile loop around south Louisiana.

It being Middendorf's, I hardly had to look at the menu. I just ordered their thin fried catfish meal that came with hushpuppies and slaw. Chris asked if I wanted silverware to eat the coleslaw and I told him no. I was there for the catfish and French fries only.

The order came out quite quickly and the four pieces were wonderful - very thin with moist and flaky flesh under a light corn flour crust.

I finished the meal with some house made pineapple ice cream. All it was missing was some rum!

This place is rarely on the way to anywhere I'm going but it is worth the extra miles to get there.

Coat a large saute pan generously
with the butter and add the minced garlic. Bring to a medium-high heat. When the garlic cloves are very aromatic (but not brown), add the assorted fresh mushrooms to
the pan and season with salt. Saute the mushrooms until they have released most of their moisture. Turn off the heat and reserve.

Coat a large Dutch oven with
olive oil. Add the onions and season generously with salt. Bring the pot to a
medium heat. Cook the onions, stirring frequently until they are very soft and aromatic and translucent. Add the rice and stir to coat with the olive oil. Cook the rice
for 5 minutes to toast, stirring frequently. Add wine to cover the surface of the rice and stir constantly until it
has completely absorbed. Add the stock in 1 cup increments until the liquid has covered the surface of the rice. Stir
frequently until the stock has absorbed into the rice. Repeat this process until the stock is all absorbed.

During the final addition of stock, add the reserved mushrooms. When the stock has absorbed into the rice and the rice is cooked, remove the pot from the heat. The rice should flow and look very
creamy but not runny.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Cranberries should be for more than just a side dish on Thanksgiving. Here is a cobbler recipe that is pretty well balanced of flavors with the tartness of the apples and cranberries balanced by the rest of the filling. The topping is a little bready. If you like that, cool. Otherwise, I have a cobbler topping cheat from Bisquick that can be used instead.

8 T butter

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped

1 cup fresh cranberries

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp cornstarch

Juice of 1 lemon

Pinch of salt

Topping 1:

3/4 cup milk

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp baking soda

2 pinches salt

Topping 2:

1 ¼ cups Original Bisquick® mix

½ cup sugar

2/3 cup milk

1 T melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place butter in a 9 inch deep dish pie plate or 2.5 quart casserole dish and place in the oven until butter melts.

In a large bowl, toss together remaining filing ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk topping ingredients.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

I'm not a fan of pecan pie. I know, that is near blasphemy for a Southerner to admit but I find them too sweet. For years, I added a bittersweet chocolate ganache to the pie crust before pouring in the filling and that helped a lot but I still could only eat a slim slice.This is the year I decided to do something different. I bought frozen tart shells and after pouring in the pecan filling, I had enough left over to cover the top of a pan of brownies.